‘There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love’ (Washington Irving)
‘Oh, I awoke in anger, so alone and terrified,
I put my fingers to the glass,
And bowed my head and cried’ (Bob Dylan – I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine)
Sometimes we cry. Sometimes we don’t know why. Sometimes (though we are loath to admit it) we know exactly why.
Sometimes we know we are about to cry. Sometimes the hot tears overwhelm us in an instant.
Sometimes we cry when we read, or write, a tear stained letter.
Sometimes we cry when the hearse carries our loved one away.
We knew that would happen one day, even thought ourselves prepared for it, yet we learn that no one is ever truly prepared for such an emotional earthquake.
Sometimes when we unexpectedly catch a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror we find ourselves surprised by tears of shame and regret.
Sometimes we cry tears of pure joy – remember the day your child was born? The day you got married?
The day that dream that you feared would never be more than a dream became miraculously true!
Sometimes we cry because with sickening finality we know that dream is over, over.
Sometimes we cry not believing just how stupid, stupid, pluperfectedly stupid we have been.
Sometimes we simply cry and cry and cry and somehow having cried our hearts out we feel a little better.
Sometimes we need a great singer to to sing about the tears in things and we feel a whole lot better.
‘[Ritchie Valens] was a quiet, underrated yet enormously influential member of the handful of folk visionaries who almost single-handedly created rock and roll in the Fifties’ (Lester Bangs)
‘I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.’ (St John’s Gospel)
The coin rose into the Iowa night air – spinning, spinning, spinning.
Tommy Allsup and 17 year old Ritchie Valens watched it carefully wondering which way it would land and who would have the good luck to exchange freezing hours on the ancient, ‘Winter Dance Party’ tour bus for a seat on a plane with Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper.
Before they knew it they’d be in the warmth of Fargo Airport and arrive at their next gig in Moorehead without having to worry about frostbite.
The coin was caught and Ritchie, the victor, smiled. Then, round about midnight the Beechcroft Bonanza took off with 21 year old pilot Roger Petersen at the controls.
But February 3rd was barely born before Petersen, Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens lay dead on a frozen field just outside of Clear Lake. February 3rd 1959 – the day the music died.
On that icy bus Ritchie must have often dreamed of his California hometown. Sure, Pacioma was dusty, down at heel, downright dirty but, but, it was warm!
Warm sun, warm air, warm water, alive with the comforting warmth of family life.
Ritchie, of Mexican heritage, was born Richard Steven Valenzuela on May 13 1941 (11 days before Bob Dylan in far away Minnesota).
Growing up in the San Fernando Valley he was exposed to and influenced by a wide variety of musical styles including Mariachi, Flamenco, R&B and Jump Blues. He had a special affection for cowboy crooners and always listened out for the guitar sound of each genre.
In his imagination and his guitar licks he was developing a striking sound which would echo and add to the history he had inherited.
Things happened very fast for Ritchie.
He was working, really working, the days allotted to him.
Before his mid teens he was a proficient guitarist and a handy drummer. By October 1957 he was a member of a local band, The Silhouettes, and honing his performance skills at Valley venues.
He was known by some as the, ‘Little Richard of the Valley’ and by the middle of the following year he had come to the attention of wannabe music mogul, Bob Keane.
Impressed by Ritchie’s quietly charismatic personality, his ability to command an audience and his guitar fluency Keane signed him to his new Del-Fi label soon after his 17th birthday in May 1958.
Ritchie made some demos at Keane’s two track home studio before he was ushered into 652 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles – the home of Gold Star Studios which had superior recording technology including state of the art echo chambers courtesy of owner/founders David Gold and Stan Ross.
Gold Star would become famed in the 1960s for epochal sides produced by the divergent geniuses of Phil Spector and Brian Wilson.
What Gold Star already had when Ritchie arrived in July 1958 was a team of superbly accomplished, committed and flexible musicians who could turbo charge any song they played on.
Ritchie was very fortunate to have nonpareil drummer Earl Palmer, pianist Ernie Freeman and doubling guitar/bassists Carol Kaye and Rene Hall lending their very considerable talents to his material.
The records Ritchie made at Gold Star are a very potent combination of the charming, deeply affecting, visions of a sweet 17 years old who was a hell of a guitar player with the dynamic drive of top class studio professionals.
What glorious, explosive, life enhancing, last a lifetime and more, records they were!
So, let’s drop the needle on Ritchie’s appropriately named debut single, ‘Come On, Let’s Go’ and listen as he and the band take off for the winning line like a nuclear powered dragster!
As soon as, ‘Come On, Let’s Go!’ revs up you know you’re not going to be any kind of wallflower at this dance.
No, you’re going to slip, slide and spin right to the centre of the hardwood floor and you know, come on, that you won’t be on your own for long.
The Darling you’ve been dreaming of is going to be there right opposite you with eyes only for you. And, as the rushing, rippling guitar flows all around the two of you will slip and slide and spin in perfect harmony. Just like in your dreams.
Everyone will say – ‘Don’t they make a great couple’.
But you won’t need to be told. You’ll be in your own cocoon of rhapsody and even if the speakers failed now it wouldn’t matter – because you’re together, together, and the rhythm is pounding through your heart.
You don’t have to think about how the dance goes .. The two of you are the Dance. And, you wish it would never, ever end. And, in some part of your being that Dance never will end.
And, anytime you need to recreate that feeling all you have to do is whisper your mantra to yourself, ‘Come on, Let’s Go!’
The success of Come On, a summer Billboard top 50 hit and eventual half a million selling single, made the decision to leave high school and become a full time professional musician a no brainer.
Before his untimely death Ritchie would appear twice on Dick Clark’s Bandstand, take part in Alan Freed’s NYC Christmas Jubilee extravaganza and feature in the Rock ‘n’ Roll movie, ‘Go! Johnny Go!’ as well as playing local gigs, join the ill fated Winter Dance Party tour and record two albums worth of songs at Gold Star.
He was working with a true spirit and a generous heart the days allotted to him.
This spirit and generosity is captured for all eternity in the two sides of his second single, recorded in October 1958, the lovely paen to teenage amour, ‘Donna’ and the electrifying, you’re never the same after you’ve heard it for the first time, can’t wait to hear it again and again, ‘La Bamba’.
Now when discussing La Bamba I could put on my oversize musicologist’s hat and wax in a scholarly fashion about Vera Cruz and folkloric traditions. But as soon as you hear the throaty roar of the opening guitar riff none of us is going to be bothered with that!
No. We’re going to be delirious with delight as Ritchie and the Band rattle through the song leaving all the doors and windows of our imagination blown wide open.
Guitar buffs will find a lifetime’s inspiration in the ensemble passages and the venomous rattlesnake solo (just ask Jimmy Page and Robert Quine).
Obviously the vast majority of people listening to the song will have next to no idea about the meaning of the lyric. Yet, all of us who are fluent in the Esperanto of Rock ‘n’ Roll will understand immediately that it’s a celebration of life.
I love the way Ritchie can’t help but burst into laughter at the sheer blast of being in the studio laying down what they must all have recognised was a classic.
Our understanding of La Bamba is surely most truly expressed in abandoned dancing that blissfully banishes all the idle traffic littering our everyday mind.
La Bamba means nothing more and nothing less than love and life and freedom.
Cue it up again. It’s mighty medicine for anything that’s ailing you!
Ritchie Valens and Donna Ludwig were born on opposite sides of the racial, cultural and financial tracks. No way they could be a couple (especially if Mr Ludwig had any say in the matter) but time has told us time after time that love laughs at impossibility. Love can navigate through seemingly impenetrable barriers.
And, anyone listening to the artless charm of, ‘Donna’ can’t help but be moved at its primary colour evocation of what it means to be young and in love.
Its swooning tempo and lyrical guitar remind us (if we need reminding) of those days in our youth when our hearts beat faster just at the mention of our beloved’s name.
Perhaps you sang that name to yourself under your breath (for in some sense it was a secret you were hugging to yourself) as you walked home after the dance or as you sat on the bus on your way to school. People must have wondered what you were smiling at so radiantly.
Of course it’s not something you can ever really explain – you have to live it to know the sweetness of that feeling. What you could do for anyone who really wanted to know was play them, ‘Donna’ and say – well I guess it feels just like this!
Ritchie Valens lived for only Seventeen years. The Night came for him – as it will come for us all.
Yet the days he had were enough for him to record two rock ‘n’ roll classics and ensure himself legendary status among fellow musicians and fans of the music he loved.
Soy capitan Ritchie. Soy Capitan.
Notes:
Indicative of my love of Ritchie Valens’ music is my ownership of two CD sets summing up his short career. Both, ‘The Ritchie Valens Story’ on Rhino and, ‘Come On, Let’s Go!’ on Del Fi will provide deep draughts of joy.
The movie, ‘La Bamba’ featuring Lou Diamond Phillips as Ritchie is a thoroughly enjoyable Hollywood product with musical heft provided by the always excellent Los Lobos.
There is a memorial monument to Ritchie, Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper north of Clear Lake which is among the pilgrimage sites I plan to visit in the USA.
Do You Believe in Magic, Summer in the City, Darling Be Home Soon & Nashville Cats
When you’re hot you’re hot.
Sportsmen talk about being, ‘In the Zone’.
A space and time where the reflexes are sharp and the mind is calm and concentrated.
A space and time where everything seems to happen in blissful slow motion as they focus absolutely on the task at hand.
All the endless hours spent training and acquiring expertise are now rewarded in winning performances where no thought is given to technique because it has been completely absorbed into their being.
They see what they have to do and do it oblivious of any distraction using the minimum effort necessary.
And, when you’re in the Zone you can accomplish extraordinary things. You can set records and ascend to the status of a legend.
Think of Joe DiMaggio’s scarcely believable 56 game hitting streak for the New York Yankees which began on May 15 and ran through to July 17 of 1941.
Whatever the opposing Pitchers served up (four of them future Hall of Fame members) Joltin’ Joe saw the ball big and clear and his bat did the rest.
When you’re hot you’re hot.
Think of the imperious Edwin Moses a double Olympic Gold Medallist in the 400 metre hurdles who won 122 consecutive races between 1977 and 1987, four times breaking the world record.
You could have set the hurdles on fire – Ed would have serenely taken that in perfect stride and still broken the tape in first place.
When you’re hot you’re hot.
No one has ever found a guaranteed formula for entering the Zone and no one has ever found a guaranteed formula for staying in the Zone.
What matters is what you achieve in the Zone for once you’re out of the Zone no amount of effort, alchemy or voodoo incantation can carry you back.
In the years 1965, 1966 and 1967 John Sebastian, leading the Lovin’ Spoonful, was hot. Smokin’ HOT.
He was in the dead centre of the songwriting, singing and recording Zone and like a musical Merlin magic flashed from his fingers.
For that blessed period there can be no doubt that there was magic in him and magic in the music.
And, listening I dare you not to believe in the magic of rock and roll, not to believe in the magic that can set you free!
Zing! Zing! Zing! Go the strings of my heart!
Do You Believe in Magic, a top 10 hit in August 1965, announced John Sebastian and The Lovin’ Spoonful as supreme messengers of Joy.
Now whether you call, ‘Magic’ folk music, jug band music or rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t matter. For its all of those and more. It’s a technicolor head spinning fairground ride through a starlit New York night.
It’s the kind of song you flat out fall in love with. It’s the kind of song that plays in your head as you fall in love.
As your heart salmon leaps along with the ecstatic guitar licks and rousing vocals you want, need, to tell a stranger about the magic of rock ‘n’ roll.
Play that stranger this song and voila! they’ll become zealous believers dancing till morning and arranging to meet up for more magic tomorrow night.
I find four or five plays in row just about right for this classic.
John Sebastian had the rhythm and tempo of New York days and nights flowing through his veins.
He was the son of a musician father and writer mother whose Greenwich Village home became a home from home for artists like Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Sonny Terry and Lightning Hopkins when they came to play in the Big Apple.
Young John soaked all these influences up and listened hard to the radio picking up on the rhythmic attack and irresistible charm of the music coming out of Detroit and Liverpool.
He added his New York native sensibility and in the irresistible, always going to be a Number 1 record, Summer in the City’ brilliantly and concisely evoked the urban landscape of honking cars, ear blasting jackhammers, street stickball, concrete stoops, echoing air shafts, clanging fire escapes and refuge rooftops.
f there’s a better description of baking summer city streets than, ‘Hotter than a match head’ please let me know.
Sebastian (collaborating here with his brother Mark and Spoonful bassist Steve Boone) summons up the deadening heat of the gritty New York days but knows these are always survivable because of the promise of the cool night when, work done and dusted down from for another day, it’s a different city.
A different city where you want to find a girl and dance, dance, dance until the moonlit still of the night becomes the magical violet hued light of dawn.
A different city where desperate dreams of the strength sapping day become shining night time life transforming realities.
In the summer in the city, the great city, dreams can and do come true.
Most great rock ‘n’ roll love songs concern themselves with the comet like rush of new found love and lust or the gut wrenching aftermath of love lost and betrayed.
It is rare to find a songwriter who can write with captivating tender conviction about the deep but simple pleasures of mature heart and soul nurturing love.
There may be no better example of such a song than John Sebastian’s romantic masterpiece, ‘Darling Be Home Soon’.
Those of lucky enough to have found a true heart’s companion will recognise immediately the deep truth of, ‘I’ve been waiting since I toddled for the great relief of having you to talk to’.
Don’t matter what nobody says all of us are searching for, longing for, the home where our hearts can beat in time with another who has found their home too.
There is a lovely breathy intimacy in Sebastian’s vocal and a sense of sure, surging oceanic feeling in the instrumental accompaniment which always brings glistening tears to my eyes each time I rediscover its enchantment and realise you can, and should settle for nothing less, than to shoot the moon.
And, as far as pop songwriting goes from 1965 through 1967 John Sebastian was practically in orbit round the moon as Euterpe and Terpsichore the Muses of Song, Lyric Poetry and Dance took up residence on his shoulder.
While they rested there wonderful songs filled with emotional insight and droll humour flowed like a river in spate from his pen.
I guarantee that your day will be better if you listen to, ‘Rain on the Roof’, ‘You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice’, Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind’, ‘Darling Companion’, ‘Daydream’, ‘You’re A Big Boy Now’ and ‘Didn’t Want To Have To Do It’.
Its a roster of songs that puts Sebastian squarely in the premier league of 60s songwriters – up there with Smokey Robinson, Carol King and Ray Davies.
For a last example of his pop wizardry I’m going to leave you with his, guaranteed to give you a mile wide grin, backporch pickin’ and a grinnin’, tribute to the expertise of the great musicians below the Mason-Dixon line – Nashville Cats.
The effortless flow and folk poetry of the song never fails to charm. You want to know how to describe the best Bluegrass playing? How about, ‘Clean as country water and wild as mountain dew’.
You want to describe how magnificently fluent those Southern boys are when they pick? You won’t beat, ‘They can pick more notes than the number of ants on a Tennessee anthill.’
Now we have to say that John Sebastian’s tenure in The Zone ended in 1968 when The Loving Spoonful effectively broke up. As a solo artist John Sebastian, apart from, ‘Welcome Back’ has never approached the glories of his heyday.
He has written warm and witty songs and performed them on record and on stage with winning charm.
He seems to me like an Olympic Champion who knows that he will never again take the Gold but who still takes part for sheer pleasure.
Euterpe and Terpischore have moved on.
The records happily remain.
Very few songwriters have ever bottled and gifted us as much joy as John Sebastian.
In in his golden period he produced a veritable champagne fountain of songs which can never fail to skyrocket our spirits.
Believe in Magic!
Notes;
Any Spoonful collection is stuffed with joy. I have and regularly play Rhino Records Anthology which you may still be able to track down.
In addition to his work with Spoonful John Sebastian aided no doubt by his sunny nature was a frequent collaborator with musicians like Fred Neil, Bob Dylan and Crosby Stills and Nash.
Regular readers of The Jukebox will know of my lifelong love and admiration for Muhammad Ali.
Tens of millions of words will be written about his legendary life and career. Below is the heartfelt, unfiltered, outpouring of a devotee whose life was immeasurably enriched by the great man’s life.
Embed from Getty Images
As usual the music I have chosen speaks with a purity of emotion and eloquence which my writing can never hope to match.
Dare to dream. Dare to dream. Dare to dream.
Pursue your dream with all the energy at your command, all your talent and every ounce of your will.
Wake up in the morning and work every day to make your dream one day nearer to coming true.
You will stall. You will stumble. You will have setbacks and disasters.
Don’t let your dream be dashed. Dare to dream. Dare to dream.
And, when you need inspiration (we all need inspiration) look to Muhammad Ali.
Look up into the night sky. That’s his star shining brilliant and true. Follow the star.
Dare to dream. Dare to dream. Dare to dream.
Muhammad Ali was a skinny Black kid from Louisville Kentucky who dared to dream.
He dared to dream that he could invent a style of boxing beyond the imaginations of anyone who had ever fought before – float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. No jive you’ll go in five.
Embed from Getty Images
He dared to dream that little educated as he was he could charm paupers and peasants and kings and have all of them laugh with love and recognise a true monarch of life.
He dared to dream that he could stand up proud before the might of the state and say, ‘I won’t fight in a war I don’t believe in’.
He dared to dream when they took his title away that one day he would win it back.
He dared to dream when he lost for the first time in his career to the great Joe Frazier that he would beat him the next time and the time after that.
He dared to dream that he could break all the rules of boxing and win the title by laying back on the ropes while the hardest puncher in the world whaled on him for all he was worth.
Embed from Getty Images
He dared to dream that when he was cruelly stricken by illness that he would find peace of mind and heart and spirit in the love of his family and God.
He dared to dream that a skinny Black kid from Louisville would become the best known man in the whole wide world.
He dared to dream that he would become the greatest fighter who ever lived.
He dared to dream that he would become the greatest and most significant sportsman who ever lived.
He dared to dream that his life would uplift and inspire dreamers all over the world.
He fulfilled all of his dreams and launched millions and millions of others because he pursued his dream with all the energy at his command, all of his vast talent and every ounce of his will.
He woke up every morning and worked as hard as he could to bring his dream one more day nearer to coming true.
Though he sometimes stalled, sometimes stumbled and endured setbacks and disasters he never allowed his dreams to be dashed. He always, always dared to dream.
He was Muhammad Ali. He was exactly what he said he was – The Greatest of All Time.
Thank you Muhammad for all the outrageous boasts. Thank you for all the giddy glory. Thank you for all the thrills and all the good hearted laughter.
May all your tears be dried. May flights of angels sing you to your well deserved rest.
Good Night Champ and may God bless and keep you always.
Some artists songs reflect the busy world being born and dying all around them.
Some artists songs are front line combatant reports showing us how it feels to fall in and out of love.
Some artists songs like those of Fred Neil, the subject of today’s Immortal Jukebox tribute, are invitations to enter a dreamscape where the deep emotions of our unconscious selves are mysteriously evoked, recognised and sounded.
Listening to such songs can be an enormously affecting, liberating and transformative experience.
Everybody knows a Fred Neil song though most don’t know that song as a Fred Neil song.
So, ‘Everybody’s Talking At Me’, a song played on the radio all around the world every day is generally regarded as a Nilsson song or, ‘That song from Midnight Cowboy’.
And, ‘Dolphins’ is usually thought of as proof of Tim Buckley’s soaring imagination. Yet both were written and first recorded in definitive versions by Fred Neil.
Fred Neil was a magnificent songwriter with a voice of extraordinary beauty who entranced and permanently influenced the early 60s generation of singer-songwriters who congregated in the artistic crucible/enclave of Greenwich Village in New York City.
PBob Dylan started out in the village playing harmonica for Fred at Cafe Wha? David Crosby, John Sebastian, Richie Havens and Karen Dalton all sat at Fred’s feet and wondered, ‘How does he do it?’
How does he play with such relaxed freedom and integrate voice and guitar so seamlessly?
How does he write songs that sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before which yet fall upon your ears like the welcome voice of an old friend returning home after a long journey?
How does every song he sings sound like an epic voyage into uncharted waters?
How does he do it?
One thing you can be sure of – Fred ain’t gonna tell you. Fred, famously, keeps his own counsel. But, if you watch and listen hard he might just show you the way a true musician carries himself.
When he’s singing a song Fred sails into the distance following his own charts to lands that aren’t inked in on any maps you can buy at the store.
Copy Fred and you’ll most likely drown – take inspiration from him and you just might find our who you are and where you’re bound.
Listening to Dolphins we join Fred on a voyage that can have no end. A voyage in search of the essential self we so carefully hide from the wide, wounding world.
The caressing intimacy of Fred’s vocal is that of a man who, at some unknowable cost, has been granted a revelation that has changed him utterly.
Odetta was right to talk about Fred’s voice being a healing instrument. In singing he heals himself and offers us balm for our own wounds. It is a rare and precious gift.
He knows full well that it’s not for him to tell any of us how to get along. Each of us has to steer our own course in search of the secret of our own true self.
The Dolphins cannot be willed to appear; you have to search. and, often, a;most always, nothing valuable can be found unless something valuable has also been lost.
What Fred can offer us through the majesty of his fathomless voice and crystalline guitar is a vision of a mysterious, thrilling beauty which though generally out of reach can illuminate our lives and inspire us like the circling moon and stars above.
Horizons are there to be scanned. Nothing is ever discovered in the safety of the harbour. Set sail. set sail.
Search for the Dolphins.
Everybody’s Talkin’ is a song lasting less than three minutes which you won’t ever be able to leave behind. A song which carries us over deep waters. A song which yet has the playful lightness of a skipping stone.
A song that whispers and whispers in the wind. Who are you? Where are you bound?
Fred’s golden baritone and the perfect alluring metre of his guitar help us slip the bonds of time measured in deadening seconds and minutes for the time beyond measurement lived in the chambers of our hearts and the shivers of our souls.
How long does it take to fall in love?
How long does it take to have the scales fall from your eyes and see, see, the world anew?
How long do you have to pray for forgiveness and redemption?
How long will it take before you jettison the baggage weighing down your life?
How long does it take to stop thinking how long will it all take?
How long. How long.
Oh, everybody’s talkin’ at you all the time. All the time.
Even if you knew what it was they wanted you couldn’t give it to them.
What Fred offers is a faith that somehow, no matter how bewildering the sound and fury of the world is there remains a place, a home, where the sun will keep on shining through the rain
There is somewhere where the weather will suit your clothes.
A home where you will no longer be a stranger in a strange town.
Sometimes, early in the blue light of dawn eerily beautiful dreams of freedom float to the surface of my sleeping mind. And, sometimes I can hear a spectral deep voice calling out ‘I’ve got a secret – didn’t we shake Sugaree’.
Then, waking with a lazy grin and a sense of gratitude I know that Fred has been visiting my imagination once again.
By 1971 Fred Neil was weary of the whole hoopla of the music business and the dangerous attractions of New York City (particularly the easy access to the drugs which threatened to mire him in lethargic melancholia).
So Fred simply flew the coop and literally went searching for the Dolphins in Florida. Down there he seemed to find the peace of mind he had always been looking for. There, comfortable in his own skin, he played for his own amusement not for applause or esteem.
He was not an exile. Rather he was a sailor who after many circumnavigations had at last found a place to weigh anchor.
Notes:
Fred Neil died in July 2001.
Fred had early songwriting success placing, ‘Come Back Baby’ with Buddy Holly and, ‘Candy Man’ with Roy Orbison.
His first LP, for Elektra in 1964, Tear Down the Walls’ was shared with Vince Martin. Tracks like, ‘Baby’, ‘Wild Child in a World of Trouble’ and, ‘Weary Blues’ already feature Fred’s honeyed vocal style and ability to make every line seem like a new gleaming thought.
‘Bleeker & MacDougal’ again on Elektra from 1965 was Fred’s solo debut. It is a wonderful record that yielded many treasures particularly, ‘Blues on the Ceiling’, ‘Other Side of This Life’ and, ‘Little Bit of Rain’.
In 1966 Fred moved to Capitol for the all time classic, ‘Fred Neil’ which in addition to the tracks featured above has a mesmeric version of, ‘Faretheewell’ (often known as Dink’s song’.
A live collection, ‘The Sky is Falling’ goes some way to explaining the hold Fred exerted over his contemporaries.
Those who fall fully in thrall to Fred’s genius should seek out, ‘The Many Sides of Fred Neil’ which is richly veined with rare gems.
Paul Brady will be 69 this week. Here’s a tribute from the very early days of The Jukebox many of you may have missed.
Bard: A tribal poet – singer skilled gifted in composing and reciting verses of satire and eulogy on heroes and their deeds.
‘Craftsmanship names an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake’. (Richard Sennett)
‘Some guys got it down …. Paul Brady …. Secret heroes’. (Bob Dylan)
Paul Brady harbours and husbands extraordinary talents. He is a great singer of traditional ballads in the Irish and American traditions able to breathe life into ‘set texts’ through his exquisite instrumental and vocal control and his natural discretion.
These craft skills allow him to reveal the often buried wit, vigour, romance, tragedy and flat out strange power of those remarkable works composed by the great ‘Anon’.
He is also an accomplished guitarist with the quiet unflashy discipline of the skilled accompanist who can anchor a tune setting a virtuoso fiddler like Andy McGan free to fly.
He also has driving rock ‘n’ roll chops learned through ingesting whole the riffs and rhythms of the Shadows and Chuck Berry as a youth.
As far as traditional ballad performance goes Paul Brady’s version of Arthur McBride is rightly regarded as an enduring triumph.
It was wholly appropriate that he performed it at the Dublin memorial evening for the late keeper of the Irish word hoard, Seamus Heaney.
Heaney would have understood how the seeming ease of Paul Brady’s performance of Arthur McBride was based on a deep understanding of the ballad form and hard hours spent honing his instrumental and vocal craft. It takes a great artist to make the artful seem artless.
The song is an Irish tall tale featuring protagonists Arthur and the unnamed narrator encountering a military recruiting party led by a bumptious sergeant as they take the early morning air one Christmas day.
The Sergeants blandishments and promises of glory, riches and female favours are satirically shown to be counterfeit coin by Arthur who though he chooses not to join the army would clearly have been a first class barrack room lawyer had he chosen to enlist.
Arthur and his friend turn the tables on the sergeant and the unfortunate little drummer boy leaving them bloody backed on the beach and the boys then merrily continue their seasonal stroll.
The drummer boys instrument, his ‘rowdeydowdow’ having been made a playful football bobs uselessly in the tide. The song represents a victory for the native over the coloniser, of hedge school wit and satire over the prepared script. Brains beats bullshit.
Paul Brady’s performance of the ballad as shown here is peerless. Nothing is pushed too hard, the song virtually seems to sing itself with Brady as the pilot who knows every ripple of the tide and currents as he steers the song home. Now he allows a little drift, now he touches the tiller, now he adjusts the tempo and volume to bring out the full salty tang of the song.
His guitar playing throughout is astonishingly deft and alert to every nuance of feeling. Arthur McBride is a big song filled with lovely sly dramatic touches which Paul Brady inhabits with unshowy assurance.
Listening to the song you naturally follow the arc of the narrative and feel yourself drawn in to the world it presents. In traditional song Paul Brady wears the bards cloak teasing out the shape and character of the song sure in its proven potency to cast a spell over its audience.
As a contemporary songwriter he has at least two hatfuls of wonderful songs and he is the author of two certifiable classics; the euphoric ‘Crazy Dreams’ and the heart rending ‘The Island’. He has also found himself in demand as a supplier of quality material for artists of the calibre of Tina Turner (Steel Claw, Paradise Is Here) and Bonnie Raitt (Luck Of The Draw, Not The Only One).
Paul Brady’s songs are imbued with deep feeling set within satisfyingly well carpentered structures. They are the product of inspiration shaped by a craft won through a thorough musical education. Paul Brady’s songs are built to last and last they will.
This is not a matter of tricks or sleight of hand but of a deep understanding in his mind, in his heart, in his hands and fingers and in his voice that real songs truly speak to and of the lives we lead both above and below the public surface.
To produce these songs he draws upon traditional practice and the craft techniques of which he is a master. He is then free to follow his inspiration wherever it leads and to choose the right tools for the task at hand.
Like his Irish near contemporary Van Morrison he can mesmerically summon the spirits to open up the terrestrial and mystical landscapes of Ireland. Like Van he is a canny songsmith finding the particular combinations of lyric, melody, rhythm and vocal attack needed to make a song take off on record and in performance.
A perfect example of this is, ‘Crazy Dreams’ one of the great ‘leaving my hometown’ songs where he lights out for the territory to find out if his those dreams of independence, of self realisation in a new world, can be made to come true.
The song has a thrillingly heady melody and a rhapsodic rhythm always flowing forward like waters heading for the falls. Paul Brady’s vocals achieve tremendous excitement for the listener because of the way he maintains his setting at intense simmer rather than boil. You can feel the gathering impulse to follow the dream in every second of the performance. Ringing, dazzling guitars and shimmering keyboards surf atop drums which drive the dream forward.
He’s leaving behind the Joycean snow falling on the Liffey, the fog of familiarity that shrouds his true identity as he packs his suitcase filled with his own dreams not those of his city, his friends and his family. Now is the time for one last look back – closing the door on the hesitations of the past before turning definitively to the future.
Now is the time to drink champagne with your darling companion until you both fall down. Tomorrow the dream comes alive. This is a journey we all have to take for someone elses’s dreams get you nowhere.
The Island is a miraculous piano centred meditation on the pain and futility of civil wars yoked arfully to a deeply tender love song. In this song Paul Brady incandescently evokes a triumph of love over hate. As an Irishman he knows the power of death fixation (the young boys dying in the ditches) yet he hymns the nurturing power of another love which finds its expression in lovemaking by the healing waters of the ocean.
His vision for his neighbours rejects a future built on slogans, tombstones and twisted wreckage. Rather, it looks to a future illuminated by the simple dreams we all have for ourselves and our families. Our children deserve to inherit a country not mired in the hurts and traumas of the past.
In so doing Paul Brady willingly takes on tne role of the holy fool opposing the zealots who are willing to sacrifice anyone and everything to achieve their utopian goals. The simple message of the song is choose love – be prepared to be a fool for love.
Paul Brady’s sublime vocal in this song is filled with bruised tenderness. Who would not want to go to the Island when the invitation is sung with such alluring enticement? Throughout the song the prayerful piano piano (by the late Kenny Craddock) invokes the redemptive balm of the love of one person for another. If that’s a foolish faith so be it. Paul Brady’s performance of this wonderful song makes that faith affectingly real and welcoming.
Paul Brady is a great musician whose work has firmly placed him in the front rank of the the bardic company of Ireland.
An Irish Bard is something to be.
Recommended listening:
Paul Brady has never made a bad record. Here are a few of my favourites with key tracks in brackets.
Paul Brady/Andy Irvine (Mary And The Soldier)
Welcome Here Kind Stranger (The Lakes Of Pontchatrain, Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore)
Hard Station (Crazy Dreams, Busted Loose, Nothing But The Same Old Story)
True For You (Helpless Heart)
Trick Or Treat (Nobody Knows, Trick Or Treat)
Back To The Centre (The Island, The Homes Of Donegal)
The Missing Liberty Tapes a 1978 live recording stands as a high peak of Irish acoustic based music making.
William Bell a sage songwriter and stoic soul balladeer told us heartfelt, hard won truths about the eternal trials of love in an incandescent series of records issued from Memphis in the 1960s on the mighty Stax label which still resonate.
These records, especially those contained on his magnificent, ‘Soul of a Bell’ album have become boon companions during the trials and triumphs of my own life.
Wherever I go William Bell goes with me.
During my second year at college I grew weary of the role of ninja intellectual and withdrew to the quiet of my room overlooking a Cambridge meadow. There, largely heedless of my official studies, I obsessively read St Augustine, Dante, Raymond Chandler, Seamus Heaney and Russell Hoban.
My engagement with these profound truth tellers was accompanied and reinforced by a soundtrack largely composed of Schubert, Aretha Franklin, Laura Nyro, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and William Bell.
And, it might surprise you to learn that if all the hours of listening were collated it was William that I turned to most often for wisdom and solace.
Wisdom and solace told in the voice of a quiet man telling the truth. In William Bell’s songs and singing there’s no hectoring, no over emoting, no grandstanding. Instead it’s as if someone looks you dead in the eye before saying .. this is how its been for me brother – maybe you know the feeling.
You don’t miss your water till your well runs dry. Tell it to me William! Tell it to me!
In contrast to the urgent, urban, industrial beat from Motown the beat from Stax was measured, agrarian, heavy with Southern heat and shimmer. This is music which seems to beckon you in to share a grown up tale of life as it is lived by folks just like you.
The introductory gospel piano says, ‘listen up!’ I’ve got something important to tell you. The stately tempo laid down by mournful horns, dead man walking drums and enveloping organ frames William Bell’s reflective, rueful vocal.
It’s the sound of a man finally understanding and coming to terms with the consequences of the arrogance of his mistaken choices. The bravura of the playboy falls away revealing the shamed penitent who must walk on alone without the one who really did love him. There’s no going back now. Walk on knowing that some lessons have to be learned the hard way – you don’t miss your water till your well runs dry. Till your well runs dry.
There is no trace of self pity in William Bell’s vocal. Rather, this is a man who is singing this song gently to himself or the silent moon above. ‘Listening to ‘You Don’t Miss Your Water’ you know it’s true and that it carries a folk wisdom that will always be true. Attend to your well.
A year later William Bell, with, ‘(I wouldn’t have it) Any Other Way’ once again elegantly captured one of the perpetual dilemmas of love – how do you cope with being rejected and discarded by the one who held your heart? I have to admit I’ve sung this more than a few times to the moon myself back in the day.
Haven’t we all, bruised and reeling from a break up adopted the pose of the couldn’t care less lover airily declaiming, desperate for the message to be reported back, now that I think of it (not that its been much on my mind) I really wouldn’t have it any other way. Any other way.
It’s obvious here that William and the team at Stax were aware of the exquisite charm of the records of the late 50s/early 60s Drifters as well as the tender, heartfelt outpourings of Arthur Alexander. The result is a glorious record that has soul staying power and pop gloss.
Next another of William’s songs that never fails to stir the heart, ‘Private Number’
Private Number is one of the great soul duet records of the 1960s ranking with Marvin and Tammy and Otis and Carla. The song tells the story of the lover who has been,’away’ seeking to rekindle the flames of love with the one whose memory has perhaps been all he has had to hold onto in their time apart. Where is, ‘away’?
William Bell was a Vietnam veteran so it may well be that, ‘away’ was his way of alluding to shattering experiences of war. Many, many soldiers struggling through the days and sleepless at night must have wondered who now had their baby’s precious private number. And, arriving home intact but forever scarred who wouldn’t be chastened to learn that the private number had been changed?
The sense of dread this sets up makes the relief of hearing, ‘Welcome Home, nothing’s wrong’ overwhelmingly powerful. To collapse, safe, into the arms of the one you love after an ordeal is one of the most emotionally nurturing and reassuring experiences of our lives. Life will go on and all will be well no matter how terrible the events of the past.
As the 1960s ended there was a deep sense of foreboding in the air. An uneasy sense that the days of sunlit hope were now overshadowed and that something terrible was coming – a bad moon on the rise.
William Bell, in his characteristically personal and understated way caught this feeling in his most mature inquiry into the challenge of keeping love alive as the grinding years grind on.
His song, ‘I Forgot To Be Your Lover’ is the soliloquy of a man, a wounded soldier on the battlefield of love, summoning up all his depleted energies in one last attempt to save his marriage.
We open with looming strings evoking glowering rain heavy clouds about to unleash a deluge.
Then tolling, Curtis Mayfield like, guitar appears before William’s at first meditative and later rueful and anguished vocal proceeds as he examines his conscience and identifies with painful honesty how he has failed to combine the roles of companion, lover and husband.
In moments of revelatory clarity he understands that love not endlessly renewed must wither and will die. Somehow, taking her for granted, he has lost his way and fallen into romantic lethargy. Simply he forgot to be a lover.
Now he knows the depth of his transgressions he can only beg for forgiveness and the chance to show that the love he forgot to offer still lives in his heart.
The sixties songs of William Bell amount to a kind of pilgrims progress taking us into the joy of winning love, the pain of losing of love and the desperate struggle to hold onto love in the face of our inevitable human weaknesses.
Through our stumbling missteps and mistakes most of have all foolishly taken for granted that the the well of love will somehow be endlessly replenished. We forget too easily that love needs nurture. That we must be a lover as well as the one who is loved.
The course of love necessarily involves doubt and struggle as well as growth and contentment. William Bell, with his insistent quiet voice telling the truth, is just the companion you need beside you on your journey
Notes:
I regard, ‘The Soul of a Bell’ as an essential record. Order it today.
In addition to the songs considered above look out for:
Share What You Got … ‘
‘Everybody Loves A Winner’, ‘
Everyday WIll Be Like A Holiday’
and his original of the now blues standard, written with Booker T, ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’.
After leaving Stax William had a major US hit with, ‘Tryin’ to Love Two’
All his albums reveal a singer who digs deep into a ballad to bring forth beauty.
William Bell is a very fine songwriter and his songs have been memorably covered by Otis Redding, Joe Tex, The Byrds, Albert King and Cream among many others.
If you search YouTube you can find William performing with masterful ease before President Obama and bringing in the new year on Jools Holland’s UK TV show.
Had I been born in Louisiana in the 1920s I know what I would have done with my life if I had survived World War Two intact and by fair means or foul accumulated a decently thick bankroll.
I would have bought a roadhouse on the outskirts of New Orleans.
Let’s call it, ‘The Blue Parrott’. And, all the dollars I spent and all the hands I hired would have had but one aim – to make the Parrott the jumpinist, jivinist, most joyful Joint for hundreds of miles around.
On the door and looking out for trouble before it becomes TROUBLE is an ex Marine called Tiny who stands six foot six and weighs in at 250 pounds. Tiny stormed the beach at Guadalcanal and came home with a limp and a chest full of medals.
Tiny never gets mad but he does get mean. No matter how drunk the drunks get and no matter how tough they think they are when they’re drunk no one, no one, thinks they can take Tiny down. Tiny maintains good order.
Behind the bar is Pops. Pops has looked sixty years old since I was six. He always will. Pops has heard and nodded sympathetically at every hard luck story ever told as he pours another shot of alcoholic redemption. Everyone know Pops understands. Everybody loves Pops. Pops has never touched a drop.
Out of sight in the Kitchen is Ferdy our chef. Ferdy don’t talk much. In fact he rarely says a word. Nobody cares about that because Ferdy can cook. Really cook.
So people who don’t come for the booze or the company or the music come anyway because they can’t resist Ferdy’s food. He will have you licking your lips just inhaling the aromas from his Gumbo, Jambalaya, crawfish étouffée and shrimp creole.
In the corner there’s a Wurlitzer Jukebox primed to pump out Hank Williams, Joe Turner, Louis Jordan and Harry Choates until the wee small hours.
I must, of course, have live music. A Roadhouse needs a House Band. So, I want a Band that’s has rural roots and city smarts.
I want a Band that folks will want to dance to, to listen to, to cry into their drinks to, to fall in love to, to remember the good and bad times in their lives to, to stare out the door and dream of another life to.
A Band people come to see the first night they get home from the Service or the Slammer so they can believe they really are home.
I want a Band that can whip up a storm one minute and lull a baby to sleep the next. I want a Band that you can stand to listen to three nights a week for year after year.
I want the Band to have a front man who makes people feel good just looking at him.
I want a guitar player who never shows off but is so good he makes other guitar players despair and consider taking up the banjo. I want a Bass player who everybody feels but nobody notices.
I want a piano player who has the left hand of a deity and the right hand of a angel on a spree. I want the piano player to sing with such relaxation that it seems like he is making up every song on the spot.
I want the Band to have a secret weapon in a songwriter and arranger who knows all the music of the past and has worked out a way to make the music of the future from it.
I want Fats Domino, Earl Palmer, Herb Hardesty, Red Tyler, Lee Allen, Ernest McLean, Frank Fields and Dave Bartholomew.
I want, and will have, the best damn Band that ever came out of New Orleans – The Fats Domino Band!
Well, well, well …. Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah.
Baby that is Rhythm and Blues and Baby though you didn’t realise it at the time – Baby that is Rock ‘n’ Roll.
By my reckoning Fats Domino’s, ‘The Fat Man’ recorded in December 1949 in New Orleans and co-written with Dave Bartholomew and blues history is the first great record of the 1950s.
Some things are immediately apparent. Fats Domino sings with overflowing charm while his piano combines surging boogie-woogie with irresistible triplet flourishes. Right about here the great Earl Palmer invents Rock ‘n’ Roll drumming with his driving backbeat which lifts the Band and our spirits until his final fill decisively says, ‘That’s All Folks’ and you rush to cue it up again.
For the musically sophisticated there’s an excellent analysis of the crucial role of Fats Domino’s Band in the development of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ned Sublette’s book, ‘The Year Before The Flood: A Story of New Orleans’.
For the rest of us all we need to understand is that Earl Palmer’s bass and snare drum attack owed a lot to the style of New Orleans Parade Bands and that the way the whole Band locked into its rhythmic parts drew on Cuban, ‘Latin’ traditions to create something new under the sun in the Crescent City.
Listening here it’s abundantly clear that this is a Band that really does know its way around and that we should sign up now for a glorious cruise into the future. Of course, New Orleans picked up on Fats first with some 10,000 citizens putting their money down to buy, ‘The Fat Man’ in the first fortnight after its issue. A million or so sales followed as the entire United States fell under Fats’ spell.
We scroll forward half a decade now to a record which still sounds dew fresh 60 years after it was recorded in 1955. ‘Ain’t That A Shame’ was an instant classic and the passage of time has only added to its charms.
Fats grew up speaking Creole French and that must be a factor in his immensely winning vocal style. The Lower Ninth Ward where Fat’s family settled after moving Vacherie still retained a country feel despite its proximity to the city. So there always remained something of the relaxed rural about Fats nature.
Maybe that explains why I can’t think of anyone in the entire history of Rock ‘n’ Roll who exudes such bonhomie as Fats. As soon as he starts to sing the clouds part and the sun lights up clear blue skies. It’s an amazing gift he shares with his great New Orleans forebear Louis Armstrong. His piano adds further shimmer and dazzle.
Herb Hardesty has a lovely sax part here which always has me sets me gleefully swaying along with him and the Band. It seems the recording was compressed and speeded up to ensure favour with the mainstream (white) audience. Well, that sure worked!
‘Ain’t That A Shame’ is regularly used in movies to evoke the1950s most notably in George Lucas’ best film, ‘American Graffiti’.
Not too long after it was issued at 251 Menlove Avenue Liverpool the first song full time teenage rebel and would be rocker John Lennon learned to play was none other than, ‘Ain’t That A Shame’. John would formally tip his hat to Fats in his essential covers record, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’.
Following the major success of ‘Shame’ both through Fats version and Pat Boone’s cover the doors to the pop world swing widely open and Fats, always guided by Dave Bartholomew, took full advantage with a series of huge hits that had global impact.
Blue Monday tells a tale we all know all too well. Oh, I’ve had many, many, of those Sunday mornings when my head was bad yet I still grinned at the apparition in the mirror and concluded as the Seltzer fizzed that it was all worth it for the time that I had.
Naturally while reflecting that the awful ordeal of Monday would have to be faced I consoled myself that Fats knew and understand my feelings and somewhere in the grooves of his song lay the promise of the next, sure to be even better, weekend to come. This is one of the great vamping grooves that engages you from the get go to the thumping valedictory chord.
Blueberry Hill had been recorded many times before Fats took permanent ownership of the song in 1956. Fats and the Band invoke a bitter sweet recollection of the trajectory of love; part rural reverie, part lazy post love making langour. Their collective vocal and instrumental sound glides you through the song like an expertly piloted pirogue.
One last song. From the pen of superb singer and songwriter Bobby Charles the hypnotic marvel that is, ‘Walking to New Orleans’. String arrangement courtesy of Milton Bush. The relaxation maintained throughout with the sure groove could only be Fats Domino. This is one of those songs that the entire family sings along to when we are on long car journeys!
Fats Domino was and remains the King of New Orleans. The unique rhythmic signature of the city resounds joyfully through every bar of every Fats Domino recording.
They ought to put a statue up in the Lower Ninth and name a Square and a Bridge or two after him. He deserves nothing less.
Some personal memories to conclude.
In the late 1970s I went to see Fats Domino in concert at London’s Hammersmith Odeon. I only decided to go at the last minute and despite my silver tongue couldn’t persuade any of my hipper than hip friends to accompany me.
I was marooned up in Row YY at the very back of the Upper Circle. Friendless and far from the Bar. None of that mattered once Fats opened up with, ‘I’m Ready’. For the next hour or so as Fats played standard after standard with wit, playful power and affectionate authority I transcended to a state of near nirvanic bliss.
It was a rain soaked night but I waited for an hour after the show outside the Stage Door just to call out, ‘Thanks and God Bless You Fats!’ as he got into his bus.
That night remains one of my benchmark nights for musical excellence and personal happiness. Thanks and God Bless you Fats.
Now that there is more than a distinguished tinge of grey in my beard I lean more and more on the sovereign, reliable pleasures of life.
A good night’s sleep next to the woman I love; a mug of fresh brewed coffee in the morning, a walk on the common, the poetry of Herbert, Heaney and Hopkins. A glass of Malt Whiskey as the sun sets. The films of John Ford and Buster Keaton and the good humoured, life affirming, music of Antoine Fats Domino.
And, echoing Fats I’m ready, willing and able to follow this regime until someone puts out the big light.
If you have enjoyed this post please share it widely and tell your friends! Remember:
The doctor told me, Thom you don’t need no pills.
The doctor told me, Thom, you don’t need no pills.
Just a handful of nickels -Jukebox will cure your ills!
Whatever gets you through the night. That’s right John. Whatever gets you through. Gets you through.
The days. The days you don’t own. You’re a prisoner of the days. A prisoner uniformed, numbered and defined by your family history and name.
A prisoner marked out by race, class, Zip Code, bank balance and Grade Point Average. And, if you ain’t no fortunate son one day you might wake up to find you’ve been drafted to fight in a war halfway around the world against folks you never heard of.
Everyone thinks they know everything about you from the way you look, the way you walk and of course the way you talk. Because your folks old country was Ireland or Italy or Poland you’re, ‘one of them’ and bound to act just like the way expected of one of them.
And you? Who do you think you are? Looking down the checklist on offer you only know you have to tick the box for, ‘None of the above’.
Sometimes, most of the time, it’s hard to breathe. It feels like you are being suffocated and thrashing about in a steel mesh net that’s tightening, tightening.
The only time you feel you are really breathing, not gasping for breath, is when you follow Grand River Avenue all the way down to the shore.
Down to Walled Lake. Down to the Casino.
To dance, dance, dance, dance until finally you’re breathing clear. Until, miraculously, you feel electrically alive and wholly free. Free.
Now you’ve had your radio tuned permanently to Lee Alan who hosted his show from right here in The Casino. And, you know that music legends have played here. Louis Armstrong himself, Sinatra and Chuck Berry as soon as he got out of the slammer.
Detroit is the home of Motown so here at The Casino Little Stevie Wonder, The Temptations and The Miracles all strut their stuff. The British invasion bands come out to the shore too to see if they can cut it in front of an audience that really knows. Really knows.
And, one thing above all the thousand or so regulars know. Really know. There’s only one band that will hit the stage at a hundred miles an hour and just be warming up. One band from right here in Detroit that will play and play until they drop.
Until they and the dancers circling the floor under the Mirrorball in a haze of smoke and sweat communally become transformed beings. That band, the unchallengeable monarchs of The Casino, are Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels.
Ah Jenny, Jenny, Jenny, won’t you come along with me!
Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels – now that’s burning rubber!
They had been Billy Lee and the Riverias. After producer/songwriter Bob Crewe saw them at Walled Lake they became Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels and in a New York studio in 1965 they achieved an almost impossible feat – to recreate the frenzied glory of their live show and capture it on vinyl.
You can imagine Mitch prowling the floor, doing the splits and knee dropping as he tears into the inspired medley of Little Richard’s, ‘Jenny, Jenny’ and, ‘C.C Rider’ the blues standard which probably came to them through Chuck Willis.
Jim McCarty on the lead guitar, Jo Kubert on rhythm guitar, Earl Elliott on bass and Johnny ‘Bee’ Badanjek on drums whip up a tornado of sound that laid waste the idea that the spirit of Rock n Roll was dead or alive only in bands from across the Atlantic Sea.
More than a million copies were sold as Jenny became a top 10 pop hit and, especially pleasing to the band, Number 1 on the R&B chart.
When you find the secret to capturing the intensity of live performance on record you just gotta do it again! Listen here to Mitch and the boys fire up and lift off like a Saturn 5 space rocket as they make an immortal anthem out of, ‘Little Latin Lupe Lu’ written by Bill Medley of Righteous Brothers fame (track down their version too).
What’s it all about? Your guess wins the prize! What it’s about is the exhilaration of Johnny Bee’s drums sound and the adrenaline rush of Jimmy McCarty’s guitar solo and the ecstatic abandon of Mitch’s vocal.
It’s about being 100% alive and throwing your head back and laughing at the sheer wonder of it all.
Growing up in Detroit Mitch and The Wheels developed a deep love and understanding of the music of the black community all around them – Rhythm and Blues.
So, whatever historians or sociologists might think it was entirely natural for them to turn to the work of a great luminary like Little Richard and a, ‘You gotta be in the know to know’ artist like Shorty Long and in a blast furnace of energy meld, ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’ and, ‘Devil With A Blue Dress On’ into an outpouring of ferocious joy.
Find 11 on your dial and keep it there throughout!
Taking on songs like these is high risk strategy. If you don’t pull it off you dishonour music you love and look ridiculous. But, once Johnny Bee kicks things off with an awesome drum tattoo and Mitch pours his heart and soul into the vocal you know that you’re never gonna tire of this record.
Additional musical brilliance here courtesy of Mike Bloomfield on guitar and Barry Goldberg on the organ. They were rewarded with a top 5 hit.
Someone else plugged into the primal source, Bruce Springsteen, recognised this and characteristically doffed his cap with his own tribute in the, ‘Detroit Medley’
Bruce a head and heart scholar of the music knew that for mainline energy and commitment to the Dionysiac essence of Rock ‘n’ Roll Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels have rarely, if ever, been matched let alone outdone.
The Mississippi River is a wonder of nature. From its source in Lake Itasca Minnesota it flows 2320 miles all the way to Plaquemines (love the sound of that name!) Parish Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico.
On its epic journey it courses through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
The citizens of Minneapolis, St Paul, St Cloud, La Crosse, Dubuque, St Louis, Cape Girardeau, Memphis, Baton Rouge and New Orleans can gaze in awe as it majestically passes them by.
Songs and stories, tall tales and twisted tunes have always been an essential part of the freight and traffic carried by the mighty Mississippi.
No city (with all respect to Memphis) has contributed as much to the creative ecology of the river than New Orleans. Especially when it comes to players of the 88 keys of the piano.
With a roll call of keyboard saints and sinners including Jelly Roll Morton, Tuts Washington, Champion Jack Dupree, Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, James Booker, Dr John, the lately departed Alan Toussaint and the piano man I’m featuring today, Huey Piano Smith, it’s obvious that New Orleans wears the laurel wreath when it comes to piano stylists. I feel a ‘New Orleans Piano Masters’ series coming on!
Now, each of the great musicians above has their own personal touch and tone: their own rhythmic fingerprint to charm our senses. What they share from their New Orleans heritage is profound immersion in the traditions of gospel, blues and jazz (not forgetting the concert music of the salon).
Sitting down at the keyboard a New Orleans Master can slide and shimmy through an encyclopaedia of piano styles calling up the distinctive rhythms of ragtime, stride and boogie-woogie as required.
The left hand lays down earthing bass lines while the right adds the melodic decoration. Listen closely and you will hear the interplay of rhythms from West Africa and Cuba giving what Jelly Roll Morton called a, ‘Spanish Tinge’ to the music.
And, all this is done with unhurried authority. New Orleans piano has marinated flavour. Tunes, at all tempos, swing. Each player their own River Boat Captain announcing their arrival in Town with proper swagger.
With all that dutiful history and exposition in mind let’s just glory in the absolute delight of Huey Smith’s ‘Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu’ from 1957.
No system can resist this musical virus!
Johnny Vincent is credited with the novelty lyric (I have to admit that whenever anyone asks me do I have a cold I always answer, ‘No, but I do have the Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu!).
The record sold over a million copies and became a Jukebox favourite in any self respecting Honky-tonk.
The irresistible vocal is by Bobby Marchan. Commanding the keys Huey plays with gorgeous fluidity adding flashing filigree flourishes to the rock solid bass line. His years spent listening to Albert Ammons, Professor Longhair and Fats Domino all summoned up into 135 seconds of piano paradise.
Huey is a New Orleans native whose musical apprenticeship included several years as a teenager working with the superb showman Guitar Slim (see earlier Jukebox post). Specialty Records recognised his piano prowess and he was soon playing sessions for Earl King, Little Richard, Lloyd Price and Smiley Lewis.
It was 1957 when Huey formed, ‘Huey Piano Smith and His Clowns’ and signed a record deal with Johnny Vincent at Ace Records. Bobby Marchan, a flamboyant female impersonator with show-stopping vocal chops took the centre stage role.
Together in 1958 they made one of the most infectious records of all time with a lyric which defies certain transcription (I’ve had numerous arguments, on licensed premises, as to how the lyric should be reproduced phonetically!).
However you spell out the lyric you won’t be able to resist singing along to, ‘Don’t You Just Know It’.
Now that I think about it the song may well be founded and draw its immense energy from memories of childhood skipping games and adult excluding nonsense rhymes. Sometimes, nothing makes more sense or is more satisfying than to chant with all your heart:
… Ah, ha, ha, ha, hey, eh, ho, Dooba, Dooba, Dooba! Dooba, Dooba, Dooba!
There’s a tangled tale behind the next great record made by Huey. ‘Sea Cruise’ from 1959, the most famous song he was ever involved with, was written by Huey and recorded by him and The Clowns with Bobby Marchan (or by some accounts) Geri Hall on vocals.
There’s a fantastic paddle steamer surging tidal rhythm throughout the song that just sweeps you along before depositing you breathless and elated on the shore after three minutes of unalloyed joy.
Johnny Vincent smelled a hit. But, he thought (correctly) that the hit would be bigger and the dollars flow more freely if the track was speeded up, given some added sound effects and fronted up by a charismatic white singer.
After all Huey was a somewhat reticent figure and while Bobby Marchan’s transvestism raised few disapproving eyebrows in anything goes New Orleans it was hard to imagine them appearing on American Bandstand with Dick Clark!
While the ethics of Johnny Vincent’s decision to superimpose Frankie on the original track are problematic to say the least it’s also undeniably true that Frankie Ford, given his shot at Major League status, hit the ball right out of the park for a huge home run!
Ooh – Wee Baby! You got nothing to lose . . Won’t you let me take you on a Sea Cruise!
Frankie was from Gretna across the river from the Crescent City. He was a campy show bizz kid who jumped at joining high school bands and entering talent competitions showcasing his piano and vocal skills.
Listening to DJs like, ‘Poppa Stoppa’ and hanging around music clubs gave him a liking and feel for rhythm and blues. One of New Orleans connected music fixers Joe Carrona took a liking to Frankie and introduced him to Johnny Vincent and thus was history made!
The final record featured here today, another fine Huey Smith composition originally titled, ‘Loberta’ was transmuted into, ‘Roberta’ when Frankie took up the mike to sing.
Notwithstanding Frankie’s heroic vocal it’s already a hit for me before he opens up because of Huey’s bravura piano intro and the immediate foot to the floor entry of the band. Beautiful New Orleans ensemble musicianship.
Huey Smith was never one to demand the spotlight.
Maybe he knew that there would always be those who would recognise and delight in a truly fine piano player and note that ‘H. Smith’ was the writing credit on some of the most cheering and enduring records of the 1950s.
Notes:
Huey Smith – there are numerous collections of his 50s classics. The one on my shelves which is full of treats is, ‘Don’t You Just Know It – The Very Best of 1956-1962, Singles As and Bs’ issued by Jasmine Records. Cue up, ‘High Blood Pressure’ straight away!
Frankie Ford died in 2015 aged 76. There is a compilation on Fuel 2000, ‘Sea Cruise’ which is a fitting memorial to a real trouper.
Bobby Marchan died in 1999. In addition to his wondrous performances on ‘Rockin’ Pneumonia’ and, ‘Don’t You Just Know It’ there are a number of fine records in his later career. Chief among these is his epic take on Big Jay McNeely’s, ‘There Is Something On Your Mind’
The Immortal Jukebox 